Newark Advertiser reader letters: A need to understand past

How can you predict the future if you don't understand the past?

On November 10, 2024, the Advertiser printed a very long open letter entitled Plea To MP To Lay Foundations For Greener Future, from Newark, People, Planet, Pastry.

All very laudable, but my open letter to our MP, and more so to the Prime Minister and his climate leader Ed Milliband, would have had a different tone.

Recent extreme weather events have been catastrophic for those affected, but beyond the hysterical headlines and media frenzy, historical data invariably shows that much of this is not unusual.

This does not diminish the current suffering, but it is a fact.

Net Zero has become the rallying call because for some reason, manmade carbon dioxide has been branded the dubious culprit, aligning with the onset of widespread industry some 150 years ago.

It is widely accepted that Earth’s climate has always changed.

History reveals the Minoan Warm Period, 3,000 years ago, followed by the Roman Warm Period, the Medieval Warm Period, and the Little Ice Age all occurred when CO2 levels were stable and therefore must have been due to natural causes, with the sun’s multitude of varying solar cycles and other related events demonstrably having caused them.

It certainly could not have been anthropogenic CO2, it did not exist.

So my question is: Who in their right mind would think that all those natural cause elements immediately stopped 150 years ago?

They are as real today as they ever were, and so to repeat my mantra — how can you predict the future if you don’t understand the past? — Colin Southgate, Coddington.